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By Their Emails Ye Shall Know Them

The art of legislative power is being in the know before anyone else – which is why rank-and-file Kansas lawmakers are asking why they were kept in the dark for weeks even as Gov. Sam Brownback’s office was sharing his pending state budget with a couple of heavyweight statehouse lobbyists. The sneak preview was allowed for a select few state officials plus David Kensinger, who resigned three years ago as the governor’s chief of staff to become lobbyist for the powerfully conservative Club for Growth, and Mark Dugan, another ranking lobbyist who previously served as Mr. Brownback’s campaign manager.

The arrangement, which would seem to make a whirring mockery of the traditional revolving door between government service and lobbying, was disclosed to statehouse news reporters as part of an email leaked from a state official’s private account. That non-public medium, legislators suspect, was intended to keep the dealings secret from them and the public before the budget’s formal unveiling.
Not so, Mr. Brownback’s office insisted, maintaining the Dec. 23 private email was sent to recipients by someone busy at home with the holidays more than with the usual office emails. Office email, of course, is easily accessible on workers’ home computers and smartphones, but it is also more vulnerable to freedom of information searches by the public and news reporters.

Well after the Christmas explanation, a second private budget email to the inner circle suddenly surfaced this week. It was dated Dec. 6, weeks before Christmas. (A post-Thanksgiving courtesy? No mention of that so far.)

“We sought the counsel of a lot of people,” the governor’s office said after disclosure of the lobbyists’ inside track. This made a certain sense, considering the budget mess Gov. Brownback faced — a huge projected shortfall of hundreds of millions that analysts largely attributed to ruinous tax cuts in 2012 and 2013 that the governor delivered in his conservative enthusiasm for supply-side economics.

The new budget eventually included $44 million in cuts to public schools and the state university, a rise in sales taxes and a sharp slowing of Mr. Brownback’s election promise to reduce the state income tax. No hint how this went over with those in the know via email.